just another day at the park
by Ms-Deunan
Summary: Jonathan O'Neill spends the day at Pike National Park and comes across non-alien aliens. Willow Rosenberg, Spike, and clone!Jack all a little less than what they were. Crossover AU.
1. just another day

**Warnings:** behind the scenes magical transportation and two cases of an adult in a far younger, child-like body.

**Disclaimer:** the intellectual properties of Stargate: SG1 and Buffy: the Vampire Slayer belong others _not_ titled 'Ms. Deunan.'

* * *

***P47** is a randomly selected letter/number combo and is _not_ from an actual SG-1 episode, condensed because who other than Sam and Walter use the full allocated titled coordinates when talking about a visited planet?

***Flash** **Gordon**; comic book superhero (Marvel, Dark Horse, et. al)

***Bizarro World**; DetectiveComics location found in Superman's story line

* * *

It was the obvious way the kid moved that drew my attention. She was quiet with skinny arms clutched protectively around a waist drowned in an oversized shirt, her eyes firmly on the ground. There was a rather large scuffmark on white sneaker; a curious mix of purple-blue edged with red. Probably ink, maybe paint, because kids her age should have classes where messes are encouraged, but the colors had forced the image of bruised skin to the forefront. That she was defensive, drawn in on herself and separated from the other kids running about in various states of a sugar high, only seemed to heighten the image. Something drew her eyes to the ground, but she only stopped to watch.

A tall, lanky guy who hadn't been there a moment ago walked towards her, eyes on the sky. Caucasian, cropped hair, blond, late twenties, trench coat, lit cigarette. He stopped at her side, paused and then casually -but not- touched her shoulder to gain attention. He stood eerily still; she hadn't.

Kid flinched.

The guy only moved his hand to tuck a strand of Kid's red hair behind an ear, rested there with a clump of hair in hand. Her step away was clumsy, fingers visibly pulling shirt fabric closer about her as if cold, and she caught herself from moving farther. He bent at the waist to look her in the eye, words were spoken then, but their position was far away and turned just so and those words were lost. The cigarette bobbed up and down with a seemingly one-sided conversation. Kid nodded, continued walking only after the guy dropped his hand. She shied away from the loud and boisterous children that ran close in an attempt to catch a Frisbee, despite their intersecting path.

Everything about that scene read warning; alarm bells rung that hadn't been triggered since P47* and _those_ kids had at least been older. Government sanctioned slave traders kidnapping teeny-boppers from overpopulated districts had less finesse than what just happened. Then again he _was _on Earth and child laws on _whatever_ pretty much slammed the guilty with punishments just under murder in severity.

Undirected thought kept Kid in line-of-sight as she moved farther away from Suspicious Guy. She was lingering behind a tree now, closer to a disappearing hiking trail than the cheerfully bright and plastic park. One frail looking hand clutched at bark while the other pressed into stomach. Her whole body sloped ground-ward; shadow and hair hid that pixy face of hers. Nobody else seemed to be watching Kid, no older sibling acting sentinel when she fell to her knees in a position of abject grief. No concerned parent rushing to aid her, to hug or magic-kiss it better. Hell, even Suspicious Guy had only given a cursory glance in her direction before throwing himself on the grass as if it were a foot of snow. It was like Kid had moved into her own little bubble of space and everyone else happily ignored both it and her.

Alarm turned to rage. She looked to be four, where the fuck was Kid's guardian- who left a child alone in a park? It doesn't matter that this area's crime ratio is the lowest In State thanks to community-bound military families. It doesn't matter that the child's park was near to Kid's tree-of-woe. It wasn't in sight and she wasn't being watched by anyone and this is just something that is _not_ done. Because Suspicious Guy? So not acting like a concerned father, uncle, brother or babysitter should.

Knuckles bit into the wood of the park bench not quite being used as cover, hard enough that there was a creak of protest. From fingers or wood. Maybe both. Not that either mattered. Not when so much _else_ didn't. Of course, the sound could have been imagined in the flood of overwhelming and completely justifiable fury. Seeing red is just a figure of speech, but this too might have happened.

Kid dropped to the ground and brought her knees in tight, arms wrapping around them as they had her stomach earlier. Her pants are as ill fitting as her shirt. When her shoulders twitched and her face was completely buried in the mass of arms and cloth and hair, something broke. She might be weary of a strange boy -hopefully _somebody_ taught her that lesson- but I'd be damned if Kid's left alone.

This younger model might finally have some benefit to outweigh the horror of hitting puberty at 47. Though really, would it have been so difficult for Loki to have aged the body seven more years, because fifteen? Not an age anyone would want to be again.

If whatever problem she had couldn't be immediately solved, it'd only take a phone call to get the pull needed to fix it fast-like. The vague hope this was an overreaction -a side effect of ailed brains, of wonky hormones, or _please god, anything_- wasn't enough to mask the sudden desire to physically punch someone. Hard.

It was the sound coming from Kid that cemented a promise made on the way to her. That same hiccupping cry seven year old Charlie had when Sidekick, the Wonder Dog, died. Sidekick had been a fixture of their lives since both son and dog were pup-aged and, Christ. Yeah. Focus on the issue at had.

The approach was as unassuming and non-stealth like as possible. Last thing this situation called for was Kid bolting into Pike National and getting lost. Not that she would cause much trouble, as this younger model comes with joints that actually worked. And if Kid managed to Flash Gordon* out of sight… Well, the expectations of a teenager's attachment to cell phones has become a well known fact and the army had been surprisingly dedicated at keeping suspicion away.

Bastards. Not like there's anyone waiting on a call from _Jon _O'Neill.

Hands visible, a reassuring smile in place, and kneeling down so as not to tower over Kid. "Hey there," the words came out calm, soothing, a rarely needed mannerism these days. "Are you lost?"

Startled green eyes shot up and blinked, a tensed body was her answer. The anger came back, not that it ever really left, at the way she immediately stopped crying, at the way she shifted and called up a mask no kid her age should have. Kid did a quick look around, the kind that assessed danger, before standing up. That moment of brutal violence, no doubt spurred on by rampaging hormones and the overwhelming desire to _protect_, might not have been as skillfully hidden as believed.

When she spoke her voice didn't wobble and if not for the red eyes, blotchy too-pale skin, and jerky movement to wipe tears away, Kid might have been able to get away with it. "I'm perfectly fine, thank you, just enjoying the nice weather and warm sun and, you know, the cool shade because the sun's kindna hot with all the moisture from what I think might be yesterday's rain and- oh." Kid closed her eyes.

Well that was a bit more verbose than expected.

She drew in a shaky breath and smiled brightly, nowhere _near_ good enough to be believable. "I'm not lost, and I'm not supposed to talk to strangers and you're a stranger, though not a grown-up but you're um, some type of strange grown-up_ish_ guy and you don't look like you have a suspicious-looking white van with no license plate but you really shouldn't be here.

"That is, you are here and I'm not saying you shouldn't be nor did I wish you to not be it's just that… I shouldn't be, um. Okay," her head tipped down and her entire body sagged; "bullocks" couldn't possibly be what came out of Kid's mouth afterwards.

She sat down, though it was slower than her sudden jump up had been, one hand going across her waist in a defensive gesture that never seemed to leave her and the other idly picked up a fallen leaf. She turned it this way, then that, before attacking the smudge on white sneakers. Up close it was just as startling. It looked more like some type of lumpy flour mixture on top a gelatinous substance not included with the recommended Crayola brand of finger-paints. Clung to the leaf like tar and had an odd smell, too. Kinda familiar, like over-cooked MREs and burnt coffee. When that leaf was defeated, she picked up another then another and repeated the processes until whatever it was left only a stain.

And okay, yeah, sure.

Ignoring a subject that was still somewhat sore and moving on, it _had_ been a while since talking with someone her age. Maybe tykes were smarter these days, though with the current example of high-schoolers it seemed unlikely. They certainly weren't a bunch you'd could call 'smart' with a straight face and mean it. Not unless it was some proud parent and the kid was in the chess club. Or you were talking about Cassandra. This kid though, she didn't sound like a four year old. Maybe eight- she might just look really young, but probably not. At least she wasn't acting afraid or weary of the 'strange grown-up-ish', who most definitely shouldn't be here but unfortunately _was_.

The crying had been very real though, no crocodile tears could produce that same gut-wrenching all-consuming panic Charley inspired a handful of times. And this situation still wasn't sitting right. The alarm kept going off and there was still an uncalled for amount of suspicion and anger and-

"Where's you mom?"

Oh yeah, real smart there, Jack- Jon. No, _Jack_ dammit.

And Kid seem be thinking along the same lines because she looked up all quick like, the hand rhythmically scratching a line in the dirt stopped and, yep that's a fight or flight response right there.

"My mom?" her nose scrunched up and her eyes flittered about somewhere to the left, "She's at work I suppose. I'm here with Spike- I mean William. He's my, um, guardian. Like- oh, like an uncle. He's that way," she waved a hand back towards the playground area and somehow this didn't instill confidence. "He doesn't get out much, or rather he didn't which is why he's decided to lounge about.

"And I- I'm just here, enjoying the shade because I didn't put on sunscreen and burn something fierce. It hadn't been needed, or at least we didn't think it had been needed, only now it… is. Oh, but that doesn't mean that we don't have any, because sunscreen is something all families should have with children all young-like, just that we forgot to bring it with us on our, um, outing-

"-Picnic! Because that's what you do in a park with trees in Sunnyda- well, um, here, in a park on a sunny day. You have picnics in parks when there's sun, and there is, so we were, and are. Out here, enjoying the day."

She looked afraid then, and like an idiot I reached out. She shot back up and took a few hasty steps away. "I think I'm going to go to Spi-William now, I spy I spy something bleached blonde. Um, excuseme, haveaniceday."

Then she was off. Seven steps sideways and off towards Suspicious Guy-Spike-_William_, who must have been paying more attention than originally thought, because he turned bodily to track Kid's mad dash to him.

Maybe, just maybe everything was fine. That paranoia just came with age, or rather, experience. Kid could be nothing more than a smart but painfully shy child. Maybe _William_ was a loving, attentive guardian. Maybe there was nothing was wrong with anything that just happened.

It mightn't be what it looked like, after all.

Maybe I slipped into Bizarro World* and it was Backwards Day or April Fools, where the skills used to keep the team alive were nothing but faulty wiring.

And, well… Yeah.

Maybe not.


	2. time stamp

**A/N:** 100 words; Time Stamped a minute after Willow runs away from Jon O'Neill.

* * *

"Hey, how are- are those tears? What the hell did Chuck do to you? We're here ten minutes and already there's trouble. Okay fine-"

"-No!"

"No?"

"No."

"But, Red! You're all bite-sized and defenseless and despite _this_ I'm still the Big Bad and _he's_ just some interfering punk."

"Just… no. Don't pout. I'm fine. Perfectly alright. He just came up the path and was concerned, maybe he has a sister, you know, or trying to act Xand-like and offer me a crayon to stop cr- No. Wait a minute.

"Get back here- Oh, fine. Suppose I'll just _wait here_ then."


	3. time stamp 2

**A/N:** 100 words; Time Stamped five minutes after the confrontation of the last Time Stamp.

* * *

"You're kinda heavy for a tike."

"You need to develop actual muscles now, Spike."

"I could have taken him,"

"No doubt, you fight dirty."

"And proud of it, ducks."

Willow was silent in Spike arms as he walked them out of the park. Without much enthusiasm, said: "Lets get to a computer. We're definitely not anywhere near the hellmouth. I'll need to figure out where we are.

"This place moves funny, tastes odd. I don't think we're anywhere near our world. Parallel maybe. I hate dimension hopping."

"N'why the hell am I _human-_ wasn't the soul enough?"

"There's sun."

"Well…"


End file.
